Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ucf-cs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!harpo!decvax!mcnc!duke!ucf-cs!giles
From: giles@ucf-cs.UUCP (Bruce Giles)
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: non RS *FIRST* disk???
Message-ID: <1233@ucf-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 19:27:43 EST
Article-I.D.: ucf-cs.1233
Posted: Thu Apr 12 19:27:43 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 21:17:43 EST
Organization: University of Central Florida
Lines: 49


I'm not totally lost around either hardware or software, and bought my
CoCo for experimentation anyway (shades of Dr. Frankenstein...:-) so,

	IS THERE ANY STRONG REASON FOR ME TO BUY A RS FIRST DISK?

I have been considering constucting an extra board for the CoCo with:

(1):   a dsdd disk controller, with separate data separator,
       (so I can use a couple 80 tk double-sided disks)

(2):   *real* serial port and parallel ports, with a spool on the 
       serial port,

(3):   a decent video generator chip (24x80) to feed a monitor,
       (possibly looking like a serial terminal so as to free the
       coco's main memory, but still allowing the graphics):

(4):   a real-time clock,

(5):   possibily a new keyboard decoded, 

(6):   possibily a modem hard-wired independently of the above
       serial port.


Finally, after talking to someone else at UCF with a CoCo, I have also
seriously been considering throwing in a second 6809 to control all
of this equipment.  The CoCo's cpu would do the 'real' work, while
the second cpu would be a I/O processor, acting like a virtual disk
(i.e., cpu1 sends data to cpu2 and immediately considers it written
to disk, when cpu1 requests something from the disk, several sectors
are read and stored in RAM for subsequent requests).

I've been told that the advantages of such an arrangement would be
spectacular, but I still haven't been fully convinced -- will the 
effort required to totally replace the RS disk controlling software, 
and make the necessary patches to OS-9 afterward, be worth my time?

Especially considering that I must write the software for all of this
in assembler until I get OS-9 working, at which point I will almost 
undoubtably rewrite the entire thing in C?


ave discordia				going bump in the night ...
bruce giles

decvax!ucf-cs!giles			university of central florida
giles.ucf-cs@Rand-Relay			orlando, florida 32816